Questions on Why Americans are Restless

2. A society compeltly devoted to complete equality weakens the individual on a number of levels. One problem that makes this a debilitating factor to the individual is what Tocqueville stated on page 167: “When men are more or less equal and are following the same path, it is very difficult for any of them to walk faster and get out beyond the uniform crowd…”. What he means here is that with complete equality no single person can become successful in any meaningful way, as he/she would be sorounded by the other people and taken up with them. Another problem faced by the idea of equality is two fold. The two are that (as Tocqueville said) that any minute difference in treatment would cause a huge upset, and that intelligence would also prevent complete equality. The former that I mentioned is that if there are any small changed in fairness, such as a person has an extra 20 dollars for food, then everyone would freak out and decry the turn of events. But this is flawed, for maybe the person worked an extra hour to get the extra money, but this is often overlooked in such cases. An example of how this is going on today in our society would have to be the celebrities. Many of the celebrities and rich people can get away from doing crimes. Not to name names, but one person only got a house arrest for a few weeks before being released for freaking out. Considering the charge, any other person would have gotten a few years of real jail time, and they would have cared less if the had mental breakdowns. In this respect it is this type of action that makes many of us livid, and it could be compared (in a much minor way) of how the nobility in Charles Dickens Book, A Tale of Two Cities, acted when commiting crimes, for at the least the Juridictive system is meant to prosecute those as if they where “blind”: no difference between race, “class”, background, etc. The last one is intellegiance. The problem, if even there is complete equality in physical sense, people who are naturally more witty can go around the system, and there is no way (in any moral/humanity way) to get brains on an equal level.

5. I think Tocqueville thinks that what we want is unattainable because most Americans are always looking for the “ultimate joy”. So Americans know what they want, but they do not know how it is going to manifest itself. Americans work hard for most of their life, which is a good thing, but sometimes Americans might think that the reward is far greater in gratifacation than the labor, and sometimes it is the little stuff that counts more than the one time big stuff, for it can last longer and can be looked forward to every day.

Blog #3: what others think..

Blog #3 care about thoughts

I think it is difficult for humans to not care what others think because of the fact that humans are a highly social group, and I think it is part of our instinct to be liked by others. Humans are highly social, as I stated, and that we are drawn to be liked by other people, as this makes us feel safer when in a group of people you trust. However when a human is not liked, they get a feeling that something is not right with them, and this leads to contempt in themselves. Not caring about others and their thoughts on you is near impossible, because, try as we might, we constantly are saying that they do not care what they think, and that only consumes us in thought and we will constantly make that reassurance when we see the person. Now for the next question, I think we control what other people see and think slightly, but most is from the other person. I say this because we can make a good first impression or impress them for the hour, but in the end it their thoughts that decide. Humans make judgmental conclusions sometimes, this could be from dress to attitude, but once that judgment has been made it can be hard to prove them wrong. And we can influence their opinions from there by our actions, but from first look we usually make inferences on how they are behaving and why.

Blog # 2: which is more important, freedom or survival?

Honestly, that is a hard question. This is a hard question to answer because I can see some good points from each of the questions, but I would have to choose freedom. I choose freedom because if one is merely surviving, is it worth to have almost no say? Now I am looking at surviving in the sense of limited say and/or slavery in this instance. I do not think it would be worth living as a mere extension of someone’s will, and I would rebel, but do it in a more subtle way if born to it, but I would first revolt and defend my own freedom if I where forced into it. So in that regard I would choose freedom. Honestly, I love my ability to choose what I want to do too much to give it up involuntary to someone I do not know. No obviously I would not want complete freedom, because eventually you get to anarchy, and ironically it goes from freedom of doing anything you want to just surviving in such a stage. So from this view, I would choose freedom but not pure anarchy, there should be some form of taboos/limit. However I do see the advantage of surviving, because you do get the chance of reinstating your freedoms. But as I said earlier, it would depend on what the conditions of the “survival” are. If it were, like I stated earlier, like slavery I would say never. But if the lifestyle were more like a protectorate state, I would not mind living in those conditions for a while.

Where do you feel you belong?

This is a complicated question. I do not know for sure, like Hyder, I can identify with multiple cultures. I do not know which one I might fit in more. In America, I have lived here all my life, but I don’t know. No matter what, I have always felt like an outsider. I have had and still have really good friends, but I still have this sensation. I am proud to be an American, and I would do anything for it, but for some reason on “small scale” I feel like I am apart. To be honest I have no idea as to why this would be. Then there is Bolivia. I loved the trip to Bolivia, and I did feel for the most part a sense of belonging. Like Hyder I had family members that remembered me and where very kind and open. I found it much more easy to assimilate with everyone else. One thing that was hard was the language. I am not fluent in Spanish, I am enough to understand the general jest of the conversations, but I had trouble with the speaking. So in this way I felt like an outsider too, a bit closer, but outside all the same. The last place that I feel i am connected to is Poland, which is where my mom's side is from. I do not have family there, nor have I been there, but I still would like to visit, but knowing virtually no Polish, I would not get far without help. In the end I have no idea where I should belong, but I still have my pride for America, and my cultural heritages.

Question on Euthanasia

N- painless killing to keep them from suffering, that is the meaning of euthanasia. Overall i have to disagree with this, though there are some things that are exception. One of those exceptions would have to be the terminal state, because the person is hardly alive, and being stuck to a machine unable to do anything is worse than death in my opinion. How ever for those that are more fortunate but still have a bad disease such as really bad cancer, people should not look at death as an easy way out. They should rather enjoy life and what time we have left in the world. Should something happen, i think people should hang on, as sometimes things happen that are not expected, and can make living, if how ever brief, meaningful. If you think about, all death is certain, that might sound morbid, but if you think about it, it is unbinding. to tell yourself i might only have x amount of time, you realize the importance of just one day, you see every thing as special, whether it is just how the sun reflects of a glass, or how the view looks like from an airplane. you are also willing to try to do different things when the chance comes, from crazy food to skydiving. So if you do have something that makes life short, you hit the ground running, you don't stop.

Blog question

A place where someone belongs is very important for a person. It is the one place where someone can be themselves and not worry about persicution and retrebution of others. Take Lennie for example. If he had a home, like when he was with Aunt Clara, he had someone that understood his problems and was willing to take of him. Since Aunt Clara understood Lennie’s learning challenge, she would not be cruel to him or treat him anyworse. Now if Lennie was in some other place, like weed for example, or even the ranch he was in now, it is different. The people do not understand Lennie, but supisingly most treat Lennie with good care. However they do think he is crazy. Curly is one that just likes to fight, and he would probably care less why he fought with Lennie initially. George does look out for Lennie, but cannot always show it since they are just trying to scrape a living. But Lennie is still in a place that I consider less than ideal. I think that a perfect place for Lennie unforutnatly has already passed when Aunt Clara died, but when/if Lennie, George, and Candy get their own house, then Lennie will have his own place and I think then he will be in a place that will accept him.

Friendship question

Friendship is important for me and everyone, it is what keeps most people running on a daily basis. Friendship however is something that does take some time to create. In my opinion friendship is something that needs a couple elements. Two are honesty and trust. These are needed for obvious reasons, as you have to be honest to someone for them to trust you, and vice versa. In the book is a good example of George and Lennie. Lennie has complete faith and trust in George, and looks like he would be willing to go anywhere with George. George has a slightly different friendship with Lennie. With Lennie George more often than not appears to be a parent figure, but he still would go with Lennie anywhere. Also I think friendship is usually about the good times, but friends will also help each other during bad times. An example of this would be Lennie touching the girl’s dress, and then Lennie and George had to hide in the gutters for a whole day. George did not have to, but he wanted to make sure Lennie was going to be okay, and they left together.